


Mallow's Day Out

by sakuuya



Category: Battle for London in the Air (Roleplay)
Genre: Gen, Modern AU, Other characters vaguely alluded to, Present Tense, Wholesome af, dog POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27799579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuuya/pseuds/sakuuya
Summary: Mallow the corgi has an exciting day out in London! Hooray!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Mallow's Day Out

Mallow follows Papa to the door, wagging her tail. Maybe if she successfully communicates how much she’ll miss him, he’ll stay? But no, he gives her a pat and a kiss on the head, says something regretful, and starts to open the front door. Bad Boy screeches a human word from deeper in the house. Even though the sun is just barely up, Papa sounds tired when he calls the human word back to Bad Boy before slipping out the door.

Mallow waits at the door to see if Papa is coming back. Once she decides that he really left, she wanders back into the kitchen to see if she has any breakfast left over. Alas, her dish is as empty as it was when she finished eating, but she can smell something interesting—ham? Hmm, Papa only had a human drink for breakfast.

The smell is coming from the kitchen window, which is open a little bit. Enough for Mallow to squeeze out and investigate the intriguing smell? Maybe! She hops up on a chair and then onto the counter even though she isn’t supposed to. It’s probably fine, since she’s just doing it to find out about the smell.

As it turns out, the window isn’t open quite enough for her to wriggle through, but she manages to force it enough to get her rump out and tumble down into the garden. The grass is still dewy, and she rolls on it until the smell that brought her out here distracts her again. It’s fainter now, and following it with her nose to the ground only brings her to a closed window. She whines in disappointment.

There’s a big, big dog out for walkies down the block! Her unhappiness forgotten, Mallow bounds over to him. He strains at his leash, almost bowling over the skinny, dark-clothed human male on the other end. The human tells him to heel, and the big dog seems reluctant, staying put so he can greet Mallow. Mallow is delighted to meet him, but she always does what Papa tells her to, except for staying off the countertops. So she lets the skinny human pull her new friend away.

She was so occupied that it hardly occurred to her that she was outside. Forget the scent of the neighbor’s ham, there are so many sounds and smells all around her! Mallow can follow the scent of the big dog, because his human didn’t tell her to stay, but his legs are taller than her whole body. She won’t catch up unless he stops somewhere; she just hopes he’s going somewhere exciting.

Crossing the street is a challenge, but Mallow manages. It turns out that the trick is to wait until the cars stop. Some human pups stare at her as she confidently hustles along beside them. They sound happy to see her, but their papa pulls them away before they can pet her. Too bad.

She crosses more streets, with only the occasional angry car sound, until she comes to a tall wall, behind which human heads (probably with humans attached) are moving around. The humans are laughing, so there must be something fun back there! Mallow trots around until she finds the way in.

It’s… ice? The ground inside the wall is frozen, and the humans are sliding around on it. The ice is cold on Mallow’s paws. She’s never seen so much ice in one place—and with no snow! Once all four of her paws are on it, Mallow starts to slip. She catches herself before she falls on her tummy.

Some of the humans on the ice aren’t so lucky, and the ice shakes just a little when they fall down. That’s especially true around Mallow. She’s found a rhythm that works for her, sliding her paws along the ice, and for some reason, humans fall down a lot near her. So she lets herself poof down onto her tummy. The humans are right, this is fun! It’s hard to get up, though.

A female human helps Mallow right herself. She smells familiar, a little. The big male human with her (red fur—also familiar?) tries to look, but he falls and says a human word. Then he asks something about Mallow's Papa! Mallow barks, excited. Do they know Papa?

The female human helps her male back onto his metal shoes and keeps his hand in hers, saying something warm. Mallow tries to follow them as they slide away, to find out if they have anything else to say about Papa. But even with the male unsteady on his feet, they outpace her.

By the time Mallow makes it back to the way in, her paws are too chilly to make going around again an exciting prospect. It smells like human drinks here, and also—oh! Sausage rolls and pies! Mallow sniffs around but doesn’t find many scraps.

She does see another couple of humans looking at her from their seat on a bench. The male is holding a sausage roll. So she ambles over to them, with the expression she uses when she wants Papa to give her a treat. It works! The male breaks off a chunk of the roll and hands it down to her! The female says scolding words, but she doesn’t sound like she’s upset.

Mallow barks her thanks, then hurries off into the bushes to enjoy her prize. Papa was reluctant to give her human food, even though it was her favorite. He’s probably still out of the house, but Mallow hopes he misses her. 

She misses him, and even though she’s had such an exciting day, she thinks it’s about time to go home. Nowhere particularly smells or sounds like home. She must have gone farther than she thought! She whines to herself, but then she spies the humans that gave her the sausage roll—slender dark-furred female and large golden-furred male—getting up. They were nice. Maybe they know where her house is?

They walk too fast for her to catch up, but she follows them into a shop with trees and lights in the window, and which smells like wood and metal. How pretty! Before she can go into the aisles of the store with them, a different man scoops her up. She wiggles, but it’s nice to be held! She’s been walking a lot today.

This human smells a little like Bad Boy, but different—maybe he has a human-talking bird too? He asks Mallow a question and Mallow pants happily in response. The human turns her tag over and stares at it.

A female human who smells like the store comes over to them. Mallow turns her smiling face toward the female, but she says something about no dogs. She does give Mallow a pat, though! Delightfully, the male human carries her outside rather than setting her down and keeps holding her as he crosses the street.

* * *

Irving dropped his keys in the bowl by the door. His shift today hadn’t been particularly long, but for some reason, he had found it draining. Although he didn’t hear the usual click-clack of Mallow’s nails as she ran to greet him, he didn’t think anything of it. Perhaps his precious girl was just asleep. Alcibiades was in the sitting-room and screeched a “Hello! Terrible!” that Irving took as the parrot being happy to see him. Mallow, though, was nowhere to be found.

He was just starting to panic when his doorbell rang. As Alcibiades shouted something else profane, Irving tried to focus for a second and took a couple of centering breaths before he opened the door.

Standing on his threshold was an Advent miracle: A man holding Mallow. She barked in happy recognition and squirmed in the man’s arms until he put her down, at which point she bounded up to Irving and put her little forepaws on his legs.

Only after he’d given his dog a hug did Irving look up at the man who’s brought her home. He was taller than Irving was, and, frankly, unfairly handsome. He smiled.

“Hi!” he said brightly. “I found your dog running around the hardware store ‘bout a kilometer from here? You know, Maximoff’s?”

“Oh,” Irving replied, trying not to break down in tears from the relief of having Mallow back. “Thank you so much! I’m Irving. Suttler.”

He held out a hand for the man to shake, which he did, enthusiastically. “Chauncey Spencer. You’re very welcome!”

“Do you—can I give you some kind of reward? I’m so grateful to have Mallow back safe.”

“Nah, it was my pleasure!” God, the way Chauncey’s eyes crinkled when he smiled…

“Then would you like to come in for a cup of tea, at least? I’d be happy for the company.”

“Well, if it’s not too much trouble, sure!”

Irving ushered Chauncey inside while Mallow ran around the two of them, delighted. 


End file.
